Over 9 years ago, I started the website “Pink Truth” to help educate consumers about the truth behind Mary Kay Inc. Four long-time Pink Truth members were interviewed at length for they story. They were all sales directors, and therefore part of the “top 2% of Mary Kay.” These women are part of the Mary Kay Cosmetics success story. Or are they? The truth is that the majority of the sales directors are barely making a minimum wage living, while some of them are actually losing money.

This story digs into the Mary Kay con that has been crafted and refined for over 50 years. Please take the time to watch this story. And if you have any friends or family involved in multi-level marketing, please encourage them to watch too.

For more than a week, I have been enjoying the discussion ignited by Virginia Sole-Smith’s article on the pink pyramid scheme, Mary Kay Cosmetics. Naturally, Mary Kay Inc. has come forth with some flimsy excuses that do nothing to help them save face. These excuses included things along the lines of “most women don’t want to make money in Mary Kay!” and “we buy back the products if they want to quit!”.

Sadly, these excuses don’t even scratch the surface regarding the problems with multi-level marketing. The gigantic problem is that MLM is a system designed for failure. A tiny fraction of 1% of distributors make a respectable living, but only do so because the 99% below them are losing money in the scheme. Read More →

In the world of Mary Kay cosmetics, Gladis Camargo of Riverton is a superstar. During the past 13 years, Camargo has built up a marketing organization of nearly 40 sales directors who in turn are responsible for leading, training and motivating more than 3,000 independent beauty consultants.

Later this summer, she will be recognized at Mary Kay Inc.’s annual seminar in Dallas for achieving the position of “independent national sales director” – a ranking only attained by about 500 women during the company’s 44-year history.

“I fell in love with Mary Kay the first time I came into contact with it,” Camargo said through her daughter Karen Borquez, who translated from Spanish. Camargo said her first experience with the company was in 1994 when she attended a skin-care class offered by an independent consultant.

As a result, she quickly embraced the business opportunity the company offered. Read More →

This is outrageous! Touch of Pink Cosmetics is a company that buys excess inventory from current and former Mary Kay consultants and then resells it to their customers. They basically help these people who were frontloaded with tons of product, purchasing it from them at a discount and then passing those savings on to consumers. It’s a win for everyone: consultant unloads useless overstock, customer gets a discounted product, and Touch of Pink makes a little money in the process.

To many, my fight against Mary Kay Cosmetics is puzzling. Why would I want to waste my time with it? After all, they’re only selling lipstick. It’s a harmless company started by a little old lady 45 years ago who wanted to give women an opportunity.

WRONG! Mary Kay Inc. is anything but harmless, and that’s why it’s so important for me to continue to educate people about the company. They are running a scam that brings in $2 billion in sales to headquarters each year.

Where does this money come from? Often from those who can least afford it. The name of the game is recruiting and frontloading. Bring her in and get her to buy an inventory package of $600 to $4800 right away. (If she doesn’t buy within the first couple of weeks, the chances that she will buy anything at all go down exponentially.) Read More →